Sixty years after President A. Lawrence Lowell (Class of 1877) proposed the House Plan in 1928, that residential system, which places students into one of the University's 13 houses after their freshman years, is coming under fire.

Critics of the system, citing a report that documents vast imbalances in the numbers of student atheletes among the houses, have charged that the system has failed to create a residential life for students that is truly diverse.

In a move that troubled many students last March, the student-faculty Standing Committee on Athletics (SCA) recommended the University set quotas on the number of student athletes who could live in each house. The upper and lower limits suggested by the SCA for varsity and junior varsity athletes were 9 and 27 percent respectively.

Currently, athletes make up 54 percent of Kirkland House and constitute only 5 percent of Adams and Dudley Houses.

In its five-page report, titled "The Ideal of the Harvard House System," the SCA based its quota recommendation on Lowell's original conception of the house system. Lowell saw the houses as a means to preserve the diversity of the College in smaller residential units while improving students' academic and social environment.

The committee said that house populations should be a "microcosm" of the University-wide student body in order to give students the "experience of learning from one another." University officials said that major policy moves such as the 1968 decision to make the houses co-ed and recent efforts to put Quad facilities on par with those of River houses were geared toward this end.

The issue first came up when Kirkland Master Donald H. Pfister raised concerns about the lack of diversity in his house at an SCA meeting last December. At that time, he told the committee that 180 of 331 Kirkland residents were athletes, prompting the committee to investigate.

In ensuing campus debate, several University officials expressed their support for the report's intent, including SCA chairman Leverett House Master John E. Dowling '57, Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 and President Bok.

Students, however, complained that the committee singled out athletes from other student groups because of their visibility and vulnerability to stereotyping. For example, some asked why musicians or artists were not considered for quotas. Others protested that adopting quotas would dilute the identity of individual houses too much and that the right of students to choose where to live outweighed the University's push for diversity.

House masters, who must approve any change in the lottery system, tabled debate on the issue in March after a meeting on the subject resulted in a split in opinion and what Mather House Master Jeffrey G. Williams called, "one of the liveliest masters' meetings that we've had." They have not yet reached a decision.

Citing the fear that more information on house populations could reinforce house stereotypes, the 13 masters also refused to release demographic breakdowns of the houses beyond athlete populations. Similar studies released in 1982 and 1984 indicated wide disparities in the percentages of minority students, private and public high school graduates, and top students among the houses. The differences closely paralleled contemporarily-held "stereotypes."

For similar reasons, the masters also denied SCA's April request for information outlining house assignments for this year's freshman athletes. The committee sought the date to determine whether publicity surrounding the threat of quotas has corrected the uneven distribution of athletes.

Student SCA members said that the refusal was based on masters' concerns that the information would be distributed to the press. They added that the masters believed the report on athletes became public through unauthorized channels. The report was distributed officially by the SCA chairman, Dowling.

This concern about publicizing house differences also prompted the masters to restrict comment on the issue to their chairman Alan E. Heimert of Eliot House and spokesman Dean of Housing Thomas A. Dingman '67.

Some College officials, who asked not to be identified, speculated that the focus on athletes may represent tentative attempts to introduce the more explosive issue of minority distribution. In 1982, the last time the University made such information public, Currier housed 18 percent Blacks while Eliot and Kirkland housed less than 3 percent each.